War on corruption?, By Kelechi Deca

I read somewhere last night that 184 top civil servants including 20 directors in the Ministry of Budget and Planning, said to have been involved in the scandalous “Budget Padding” that crippled the 2016 Budget, were yesterday reassigned to other departments and agencies. The ‘big’ punishment according to the government is that these people will not have anything to do with budgeting again until they leave the civil service.

In a related development, information coming out of the Central Bank of Nigeria has it that some officials of the Bank caught engaging in sophisticated financial fraud have been suspended from their posts.

SUSPENSION???????

Something is not right here…..

Granted that Civil Service Laws makes it hard for Mr. President to sack any Civil Servant as he wish. But there is no law that says if a man is caught engaging in criminal activity he should not be arrested and prosecuted accordingly.

Why should the apex Bank simply suspend officials caught in the act, instead of handing them over to EFCC?

Why should the Presidency simply redeploy the Civil Servants instead of prosecuting them?

Is it a question of the more you look, the less you see?

Is government not really convinced there was a ‘padding’, or is ‘padding’ not an illegal activity to warrant the arrest of the ‘padders’ ????

I am of the persuasion that if this War on Corruption is to be fought, no stone should be left as is……..